


It's Habit (It's Love)

by MoMoMomma



Category: Captain America, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Returns, Can Apparently Break Russian Brainwashing, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Platonic Kissing, Steve Rogers Feels, True Love's Kiss, until it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoMoMomma/pseuds/MoMoMomma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but it's echo lasts a great deal longer- Oliver Wendell Holmes</p><p>Steve kissing Bucky's black eye as a child leads to a habit of kissing hurts and pains away. It's habit, instinctive. Until it's love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Habit (It's Love)

**Author's Note:**

> Technically written for a kink meme prompt on the new round, though I think that I went a little off what the prompter wanted *winces* IDK if I post this as a fill, or a treat, or what. Ugh! I'm a shitty prompt filler, I should probably stop and focus on my WiP's. ~~Iron Man AU? What Iron Man AU? *primal scream*~~
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time it happens, they’re both five years old. Skinny little orphans in a dusty playground, Steve obviously a lot skinner than him. Bucky spits blood onto the ground and yells at the backs of the retreating older boys that thought shoving Steve around would be more fun than basketball or soccer. It’s the first time Steve meets Bucky and he’s instantly attached to this newfound protector.

Even if, in years to come when Steve grows and Bucky never stops stepping in on his fights, he screams that he’s not a dame, he doesn’t need someone to protect him.

Later that night, after the nuns had scolded Bucky for fighting but left the other boys alone, Steve blots at Bucky’s black eye with a spare bit of wet cloth, wincing in sympathy. It seems instinctive at the time, as Bucky’s swearing at him with language no kid their age should know or use, something buried in Steve’s memories along with the smell of perfume and the lilting lullaby of an old song.

After he pulls back from pressing a soft kiss to the outside corner of Bucky’s eye, face burning and unable to meet his new-found friend’s gaze, Steve waits to get hit. Boys didn’t kiss boys, not even on their cheeks. He probably just lost the first real friend he’s ever had.

But instead of giving him what for like he did those bullies, Bucky just laughs and claps Steve on the knee, telling him he’d make a good mom one day. Steve grins and shoves at him and they tussle until the nuns come in and snap at them to go to bed.

They look back, when they’re older and nothing is innocent anymore, and wonder just how different life would be if Steve hadn’t done that. And they shudder at the thought and thank God that he did.

 

************************

The next time it happens, it’s Bucky who does it.

Steve’s bent over on the ground, a ten year old bag of flesh and bones who weighs about forty pounds soaking wet, clutching at his chest as fire rips his lungs open. He was running from a dog whose territory he’d accidentally wandered into. Steve wouldn’t run from bullies, a fact that made Bucky spitting mad, but he was smart enough to know going up against an angry dog wasn’t a fight he had a chance in hell of walking away from.

Bucky’s pacing in front of him, screaming for help and cussing up a storm. Suddenly he’s right against Steve, rubbing his back to calm him and whispering soft words. At the touch, Steve’s breathing starts to settle a bit, a little more air coming in on each inhale, the fire slowly slipping away. Bucky’s begging with him, pleading him to start breathing right, screaming that if he dies he’s gonna kick Steve’s scrawny little ass to kingdom come. It finally abates, blessed cool air rushing in, Steve falling back onto his butt, Bucky right there the whole time, glaring at him.

The dark-haired boy presses a kiss to his forehead, whispering that he’s glad he’s alright.

Then he smacks Steve in the back of the head and tells him if he ever does it again, he’s gonna push him into the bay.

 

*************************

It becomes habit after that, more frequent. They don’t do it where other people could see, men get killed in dark alleys for things like that.

Plus Bucky’s always got a dame hanging on his shoulder and one at his side for Steve,

Whatever thoughts or notions they dream up in the dead of night, tangled in sheets with the sweat cooling on their skin, is their own business.

 

*******************

Steve’s hollering at Bucky for being a reckless idiot, bandaging up his busted knuckles and firmly ignoring his whines for an hour before reluctantly pressing a kiss to the bandages, telling Bucky where he can shove that self-satisfied smirk.

 

**********************

Bucky’s got a hold of Steve’s shoulder’s, screaming at him for being an idiot, for refusing to back down from a fight. Three against one ain’t great odds to begin with, they’re complete crap when the one is a guy built like Steve. Once he finishes he stomps off into his bedroom, slamming the door so hard Steve hears the old woman who lives next to them start yelling.

It takes a couple hours for Bucky to finally calm down, stumbling out of his room reeking like the rotgut whiskey he’s got stored under his bed, throwing himself down on their musty couch next to Steve. He slings an arm around him, pulling him close and pressing a kiss to his temple, whispering that he’s sorry. He didn’t mean to scream, it’s just…

“If I lose ya, ya stupid punk, what I got left to live for?”

 

**************************

Steve’s hovering in the doorway of Bucky’s bedroom, shifting from foot to foot and watching the man throw the rest of the things he needs in the pack the army gave him. His own rejection letter is still sitting on the kitchen table, the letter and number combination making him sick to his stomach every time he looks at it. Bucky’s telling him he’s all packed, that he better get going if he wants to catch the bus on time.

Steve feels numb, like he’s losing a limb. In a way, he is. He and Bucky have been attached at the hip since they were kids, always there for each other. Now Bucky’s going off to war without him and Steve gets to sit at home and pray and hope that the knock on the door is Bucky returning home and not a postman with a condolence letter.

He dodges Bucky’s first kiss, jerking his head away and letting Bucky’s lips hit air when they would have landed in the middle of his forehead. Steve protests that he’s not hurt, not sick, and that he doesn’t need a kiss. Bucky just shrugs and manhandles him back to where he wants him, pressing lips to his sweaty skin and murmuring that being sad is kinda like being hurt.

Steve watches him go and is, after the fact, grateful for the kiss. It doesn’t help the pain lancing through his heart, but it didn’t seem like goodbye. And he’ll cling to anything right now.

 

**************************

The last time, for a long time, is right before Steve’s whole life changes. After he and Bucky have it out about him giving enlisting one more shot, Bucky’s words cutting him deeply. He tries to make a joke as Bucky turns to storm off, bringing the older man around to snap at him, eyes already softening.

He does it quickly—they’re out in public after all—brushing his lips against Bucky’s jaw. He can see the hurt in Bucky’s eyes, the fear for him, for what could happen to a guy like Steve out on the battlefield. But he’s gotta do this, he’s got no right to do anything less than try until he can’t anymore.

Bucky gives him a weak grin, before covering it up with a cocky line to the gals, striding off. Later, when Steve hears the news from Peggy and his chest burns like he’s having another attack, he wishes he’d done more, talked more.

And, absurd as it is, when Phillips is apologizing, telling him Bucky’s gone, he wishes he would have given him a different kiss entirely.

 

******************

The absurdity returns when he sees Bucky strapped to that table, muttering deliriously. All he wants to do, as he tugs Bucky up off it, the man slumping against his new body with a joke, is press their lips together. Breathe in Bucky’s breath and keep it in his lungs, true proof that Bucky’s still alive, that his protector made it after all.

Instead, he leans down to gently press a quick kiss against the cut on Bucky’s cheek, the man looking up at him with a frown, eyes still hazy but clearing quickly. He mutters something about thinking Steve was smaller, prompting a grin from the Captain as he hustles them both away.

************************

Bucky returns the favor soon enough, Steve slamming into him after clearing the gap that he shouldn’t have been able to clear. They tumble to the ground, scrambling to their feet quickly and rushing towards the elevator. Once inside, Bucky slumps against the wall next to Steve, reaching over to tangle fingers in his hair and drag him down to kiss his temple.

Steve assumes that’s what he was going for, anyways, and blames Bucky’s dizziness as the reason he gets the top of Steve’s ear instead.

 

*************************

Bucky falls, fast and hard. Death isn’t something Steve can make better with a kiss. His world goes black and white, the color and vibrancy of Bucky gone, muting everything like Steve’s underwater. The world isn’t real anymore, something settles, perhaps in the very moment Bucky falls, that separates him from everyone, that dulls everything until he feels like he’s watching his life, not living it.

Peggy’s kiss leaves lipstick pressed to his skin. It’s sweet, what he’s been wanting since he first saw her.

He wishes it were Bucky.

**********************

And then Steve truly is underwater. It’s welcome, almost. They say angels have bodies, can touch and feel. He’s certain, as the water rushes into his lungs, that Bucky’s kiss in Heaven will be worth the pain.

Steve is awake. Years have passed, decades worth apparently. He’s out of the ice, out of time.

Bucky’s still gone.

The world is still cold.

*****************************

Tony jokes about someone kissing him. Steve looks away, an exhausted smile tugging at his mouth. That was something Bucky would do, and were it Bucky, Steve would have rolled his eyes and planted a big, smacking kiss right on his nose.

But Steve doesn’t kiss anyone anymore.

 

****************************

He inhales as the eyes, those eyes he knows so well, narrow. They’re dead now, nothing like the glittering hazel he remembers. Steve gets a hand up, aware of the blade pressing into his throat. He has to know, even if it kills him. He yanks away the mask, inhaling at the face of the man he lost. He chokes out a name, but Bucky doesn’t know him. Doesn’t know anything.

Steve knows he’s being absurd. Laying in the rubble of what was once a nice restaurant, his back-up trapped outside, his comm laying off to the side, the infamous Winter Solider straddling him with a blade pressed against his throat. His only thought is on kissing him, on doing what he’d wanted to do all those years ago, when he couldn’t reach far enough, couldn’t move fast enough.

The Soldier snarls at him in Russian when he leans up, and Steve feels the skin of his throat give under the pressure of the knife, warm blood pooling in the hollow at the base, but he can’t stop. He’s whispering something, he can’t hear himself over the rush in his ears, begging Bucky to remember, to stop this, to come back to him.

The Soldier’s lips are cold when Steve presses his own against them, closed tightly, turned down in a frown. He persists, even when he can feel the knife biting ever deeper into fragile skin, his body rushing to heal itself, every instinct screaming at him to get away.

It takes his tears to make it work. One lone tear slips down, finds the corner of Steve’s mouth and slips in between them. In that moment, the knife falls away and Steve sees Bucky slide back home in those gorgeous eyes. He grasps Steve like he’s falling once more, mouth opening under his, talking furiously in Russian and English until Steve’s tongue stops the flow of words altogether.

The world bursts into warmth and fire, hands tugging at clothes, soft words muttered between kisses, moans vibrating across tongues. When they lay in a heap afterward, Bucky’s head pillowed on Steve’s chest, cum and sweat and blood drying on their clothes and skin, the soldier turns and presses his lips to Steve’s throat, where he has already almost healed.

It’s an apology, a prayer for forgiveness. And Steve can do little else but bend and kiss the corner of Bucky’s eye, licking the salt of a tear off his lips. The symbolism isn’t lost on him, or on Bucky judging by the man’s rough chuckle.

There will be semantics to worry about later. For now, Steve holds his heart close, pressing distracted kisses into his hair. It will take more than kisses to heal the hurt in Bucky’s brain from whatever was done to him, but Steve’s got all the time in the world, now that the world is real once more.


End file.
